Cranberry pecan bread and bagels. Precise edition

You guys should be proud!!  I'm actually writing down a recipe with specific measurements and specific instructions instead of just making it however I want.  (I am not promising you I will do it this way twice, this is just how I usually do it.) 

• Ingredient list:
• 1/2 C Bulgar wheat soaked in 2 C water
• 2 1/4 tsp fast rise yeast
• 1 T sugar
• 2 C warm water
• 1/3 C finely minced pecans (measure pre-chop)
• 1/3 C dried cranberries
• 1/3C all purpose flour
• 2 Tbl canola oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 C wheat flour to start  (2 C Total)
•  4 C All purpose flour for the kneading stage. 
• 2 tbl Canola oil for coating while rising.
• Extra oil/flour for covering your hands while working with the dough

1/2 C Bulgar wheat soaked in 2 C water

 (I use Bob's Red Mills fast cooking Bulgar wheat.)  Let it soak for at least an hour, longer if the kernels are still tough.  You can do this before you go to work, the night before or the morning, just refrigerate them after they're puffy if you're going to put off baking to avoid growing things.

• 2 1/4 tsp fast rise yeast
• 1 T sugar
• 2 C warm water

Set this stuff up in the mixing bowl.  If you're wondering, that's one envelope of yeast, I just buy it in bulk.  Go do something else for a few minutes, say, chop nuts.  Let the yeast mixture getting all creamy looking.

• 1/3 c finely minced pecans (measure pre chop)
• 1/3 c dried cranberries
• 1/3 c all purpose flour

 Chop the pecans up very fine.  You will regret using more than this because of all the other stuff we're folding into the bread.   Trust me.  I really love pecans.    I would use more if I could get away with it.





 Mix pecans, dried cranberries, and all purpose flour together in a separate bowl to coat with flour. Mix flour, cranberries and nuts together.   Then add Bulgur wheat.  I'm not sure this matters but I do it anyway to help it blend better.

• 2 Tbl canola oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 C wheat flour to start  (2 C Total)

This is only about a third of the mixture

  Add 1/3 cup wheat flour to the yeast.   Mix.   Add 1/3 c wheat flour to the yeast, mix again.   At this point, add the wheat cranberry nut flour mixture to the bowl.  Mix again.  Add another 1/3 c wheat flour, mix again,   gradually adding another cup of wheat flour.  

When finished

About halfway through

Mix on high speed until well blended.  Remove mixing paddle and install dough hook and flour guard.  Gradually add about four cups all purpose flour.    You need to knead this stuff FOREVER, wheat bread is hard to work with.  In another words, about fifteen to twenty minutes.

Clean your kitchen table thoroughly and pour 2 tbl Canola oil on it in two pools.  Turn out dough.  Use the dough to spread the oil around the table, coat.  Then cover with two sheets of plastic wrap.  Cover with kitchen towels.  Let rise about two hours or until double in size.  You can also leave it until you get back from running an errand but it might rise off the edge of the table so be careful.  A related matter, you can let it rise in a bowl but it WILL overflow.  This is a lot of bread.   Make sure it's a massive one if you try it that way.

I call it the blob

hiding under there

After about two hours, or in my case, three, it will  be at least doubled in size.   This recipe is for a ton of bread.  I freeze the extra and keep it in the fridge because there are no preservatives.  It will mold if you don't pay attention.



First things first, OIL YOUR HANDS.   Punch the dough down and make balls about the size of your palm.  Get it as smooth as you easily can and punch a hole in it.  This is your bagel.  Make 12, set aside and let rest for ten minutes. 

what's left after bagels

my dough balls

While the bagels are resting, it's time to make your bread.  You can do whatever you want with it.  I divided it into six sections and made bagguettes.  One "family" sized and three in two serving size. 

 Roll them out gently if you want a braided bread and twist the two sections to form a braid.  This is for the smaller loaves.




For the family sized loaf I rolled it out in thirds and braided them.  Be careful to the ends under so it'll look good. 

 

Sometime during all this prepare a sauce pan with water and about two teaspoons of salt.   Turn the heat on high and get it going to a rolling boil.  Get a slotted spoon and boil the bagels, two at a time, one minute on each side.  This will make them shiny and chewy.  Bake for twenty minutes at 450F or until they sound hollow when you tap on them.

 

YUMMY

Let the loaves rise for about forty minutes or until you lose patience.  Depending on the desired look, you can score the loaves that aren't braided with a serrated knife.  Bake @ 350F or until golden brown and hollow when you tap on them.  Brush with butter if desired, butter with sugar if you want it to be sweeter and enjoy.

A repost from my myfitnesspal blog: For all my big beautiful sisters

I posted this three years ago on myfitnesspal.com .   Thought it was worth a repost.

I was reading another member's blog a minute ago and something they said hit me like a ton of bricks.   The gist of it was that people still saw her as obese even though she'd lost fifty pounds because she was still obese and she wondered if they wondered why a fatty would have so much confidence.    Pardon me, but what the hell?

 I was a big kid.  I was mocked in sixth grade for having boobs, an anomoly at that age with mooing cow noises.  After overcoming that trauma, I found my strength in speech and drama classes.  I was big, bold, and in my opinion, badass.  I had giant glasses and a big tush.  I guess I just didn't get the  memo that I was supposed to hate myself for wearing plus sized clothes.   I went through high school as a big girl, wearing clothes that showed off my chest and feeling good about myself.  I was a little shy with boys, but considering I wasn't interested in sex until I was 25 I don't think I missed out on much.

 My friends were big girls.  They had confidence.  They knew they were hot.  They knew that boys wanted them.  They didn't hold their heads down in shame at their fatness.  I'm wondering, and I've never figured it out, why it is so politically incorrect to put a good looking fat girl on tv.

Can somebody please tell me why I'm supposed to be shamed by the size of my body?  Is it the boobs?  People pay good money to get ones half the size of mine.  Is it not fitting comfortably into amusement park rides?  After riding a roller coaster for the first time a year ago, I'd rather have a cavity filled than do it again, thank you.   If it's the health problems that go with being heavy, that's my problem, not yours.

Look, if you're pretty, you're pretty.  You're going to be pretty fat and prettier slim.  Get a grip!  Walk with your eyes off the ground no matter how big you are.  It could be worse! You could be fat and ugly.  Yeah, it could a be a lot worse.  You could be a fat, ugly, bald woman.  Even if you are, it could always be worse.  You could be fat, bald, ugly and rude.  

Girls, please, get a grip!  Do this because you want to, not so people will like you.  If they don't like you now... they never will. 

A General Disclaimer about Common Sense

I want to make something abundantly clear:  I have not drank the Kool Aid.    Just because I made my own laundry soap doesn't mean I'm afraid to use the Purex that's still in my garage.  I don't think it's full of toxic horrifying chemicals just because I don't know what all of them are by reading the label.   Everything is a chemical.  Air is full of chemicals.  Water is full of chemicals.  Sugar is full of chemicals.  Everything that is Gluten Free is still full of chemicals.   Earth is made of chemicals.

I don't think we need to be half as scared as we are.  I gave my doctor the Zeal Wellness canister and he told me some of the values were a little high but anything my body couldn't use I'd just pee off.   To me, that is awesome news.   It is the same kind of awesome news that my habit of taking four Benedryl to sleep last year wasn't going to kill me.  It gave me a medication hangover the next day, but it wasn't going to hurt me.   I still take my anti depressant because it levels out my moods.  It works for me.   I like getting healthier, but I'm never going to criticize someone else because they aren't doing it my way.

Yes, I make my own bread.  I do this because it's fun.   I do this because it tastes good.  I do this because to be honest, when I'm eating something, I feel better if I know what's in it to the farthest degree possible.   I didn't grow the wheat or mill the flour though.  Someone bleached part of the flour, and I'm still not worried about it.   Why?  Just because I don't understand something doesn't mean it automatically isn't safe.   Why did I make laundry soap?  It sounded like fun.  It looked like a way to pay very little for something I use all the time.  Same thing with the bread.   Have I mentioned I'm cheap?

I love most of the people reading this blog dearly because most of them are my friends and family.    Some of you are on gluten free diets for health reasons.  Good.  Do what makes you feel good.  Do what makes you better.  Good.  Some of you only eat pasta and Pepsi.  That's kind of gross and I wish you would eat more vegetables.  I know some of you are vegetarians.  Stay healthy and be practical about that.  Be practical about all of it.  Extremes are scary.   Trying to stick to only one brand or only type of music or only listening to voices that agree with you is not healthy.   I try to take the middle road on most things because that's usually where the truth is found.

Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something.

Zeal Weight Loss Shakes

Okay, so I mistitled the last one.  I am not done talking about this. 

I got through yesterday without getting hungry.   I got through yesterday without getting hungry and I had two protein shakes, I didn't even smoothie them up, just milk and the Zeal Weight Loss shake, for lunch.   I ate two Kashi bars to maintain blood sugar, but I wasn't hungry.  It took three days, but I'm starting to believe the label on the bag. 

I have tried shake diets before.   I've done slim fast.  It didn't work too well.   I just ate crap all afternoon from the vending machine.  Yesterday was a little different in that I didn't *plan to work through my lunch.   It just kind of happened half way through the morning meeting.  I need to get caught up.  So I worked through my lunch and drank my lunch while I was doing it.

I then came home and ate my leftover beef fajitas (no grease, 400 calories for the whole meal) and took the dog for a walk.   It made my bad leg hurt so I put my feet up and then ten minutes later I did the exercise bike for 20 minutes.  The exercise bike doesn't put pressure on my bad leg.   After all this, about an hour and a half later I got hungry, so I made quaso and chips.   At no point in this process did I lose my mind and pig out.   I still had 400 calories left for my daily goal after all this.

I know I need to have at least 1200 net calories a day to avoid jacking my system up, so I'm going to stick to that, but this stuff is allowing me to be a lot more intentional about what I'm eating and I like that a lot.   If I have to think about it before I put it in my mouth, realize I need to eat something instead of just mindlessly reaching for a pile of sugar, then I'm getting somewhere.   Now to pay my bills and figure out if Leslie can go ahead and get the Zeal Burn supplements..

 

And in conclusion (Zeal Protein shakes)

Today I had a good calorie day.   I have leftover calories to eat.    I ate the protein shake three times today, once for a mid morning snack, once for lunch proper, and once late in the day when I was feeling a bit peckish.  I think that may have been more white coat anxiety from meeting with the surgeon with the thin scrubs.   The surgeon who is, *gulp, very nice.    He actually asked me how tough I was.  Apparently he's going to give me a local, cut it open and pop that sucker out.

Exactly what I would have done in my kitchen if it hadn't have been my dominant hand.   Curse you, right handedness!!!   Or bless you, this way I'm not going to have to do that without drugs.

I never got hungrier than I normally get on a workday when I'm having a healthy week today.   This is saying something, as I'm a big girl with a healthier metabolism than I had in the past (Thank you Zeal Wellness drink), and I usually eat 300-600 calories meals for lunch and this thing was only 160 calories with the half cup of milk I put in it.   Again, I can't stress this enough, it tastes like cake mix batter.

Zeal Wellness protein shakes

Quick update: I have to get to the office, but... yesterday ended up being a calorie disaster.  I can't say it was because of the shake lunch because it wasn't.  If I had to put a finger on it, I'd say it was the stress of having an appointment with a plastic surgeon today (I have a lipoma, i.e. fatty tumor in my arm that's bugging me.  For my whoovian friends, A lipoma is a benign tumor composed of adipose tissue, or the cutest little monster ever.), getting my roof redone, and the funeral of a long time neighbor on Saturday.  All this produced an angry gut, which made me stressed out, which makes a sister overeat.

I'm going to try it again today with a twist.  Instead of loading up this morning with a yogurt smoothie, I just did my usual homemade bagel and Zeal Wellness with water.   Lunch, I'm going to do a plain old chocolate protein shake and maybe a granola bar.    More later. 

Somebody has to get her hair and makeup done before work. :)

Zeal Wellness Smoothie (Or how a single girl gets FRUIT in her diet)

I used to complain that when I bought fresh produce, it would rot before I got a chance to eat it.     Okay, I still complain about that.  I HATE throwing food away.     It reminds me that I live all by my lonesome and it's wasteful too.   A few weeks ago I ran across a ridiculously good sale on produce at Aldi's.   I'll just tell you a secret about Aldi's that's not really a secret:  The produce is not refrigerated.   They also aren't too careful about expiration dates.  Don't get me wrong, you can find some really cool deals there, and I do, but you have to be careful.   The other thing you have to do is eat the produce right away because that stuff is going to go bad.   Quickly.

So I bought two pounds of strawberries ($1), a pineapple ($1), and three pounds of oranges ($2) and took it home with me.    Once there I figured out that I needed to freeze that stuff or it was going to go bad.   I am not a fruit bat.  I like fruit but I don't eat it by the gallon or anything.    I've been doing Zeal for Life Wellness and I'd read you can make a smoothie out of that stuff, so I cut up all that fruit and froze it.  In bags.

I have a solution now to my rotten produce problem.   I also have a 200 calorie way to get my fruit in and take my Zeal.   With about 6 grams of fiber give or take a few because of the way the fruit in question varies.  I can't be the only single girl who struggles with getting enough fruit in her diet.  Or having to throw it away.  Or having a hard time not eating out.   So I'm going to share.   I have pictures.

 

This week's fruit selection: 

So my my, Leslie, what did you put in this thing?    Funny you should ask, I have more pictures.  To answer your question though, about 1/2 cup yogurt (greek or regular lowfat), one scoop of Zeal, 1/2 Jumex Mango (That webpage is in Spanish because it is Mexican juice.) nectar and a flattened quart sized bag of mixed fruit.

 

 

The finished product:   

And yes, it is yummy.  Yes, you can do it.